


days fall away

by lavendrsblue



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, M/M, One Shot, Post-Canon, Sakura (Cherry Blossoms), Slow Build, also a gay picnic, background daisuga but i feel bad putting the actual ship tag, oisuga roommates, reconnecting after university
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-29
Updated: 2016-02-29
Packaged: 2018-05-23 22:20:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6131968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lavendrsblue/pseuds/lavendrsblue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the last five years Hajime has lived in a city full of strangers, seven hours away from Sendai; no one kept up with university volleyball in Miyagi, no one knew who Oikawa Tooru was. He hasn’t spoken regularly to Oikawa since university. Work schedules and expensive train tickets prevented them from regular calls and visits, and over time they just sort of… dwindled. Which is fine, that’s normal, it happens to plenty of people. Even when those people were best friends for years. </p>
<p>Except now he’s back home, so close to his old haunts and to Oikawa himself, and it's—weird.</p>
            </blockquote>





	days fall away

**Author's Note:**

> what a journey this has been! i started writing this by hand in a notebook while i was on vacation, and now two months later it's somehow evolved into this. a big thank-you to anne (bigspoonnoya) for beta - without her help, this fic couldn't even hold a candle to what it's become.
> 
> t rating is just for language. also, fun fact: this is compliant with my daisuga fic, "a heavy leaf to turn," and takes place a year or so afterward. however, both fics can stand alone - there are just a couple little nods that you might catch if you've read both.

Someone is pounding at the door.

Hajime glares at his tea. He’s made an entire pot, anticipating the kind of lazy two-cup morning that’s been few and far between since he’d moved back to Sendai. The physical therapist he’d replaced at the clinic, he hears, was less than competent, and everyone else’s schedules are backed up for weeks trying to get all their patients through their exercise programs. He doesn’t mind the influx of work—it’s a faster pace than his old job, he likes the feeling that he is helping as many people as he can—but the days full of double-bookings, plus long evenings spent unpacking and fielding phone calls from his relatives, are catching up with him. All he wants to do is melt into the couch cushions and drink in the slow morning. The laundry is beginning to pile up, he could spare time for a trip to the laundromat. Maybe he could even take a nap—a true novelty.

But he rises from the table with a sigh and shuffles to the door, stifling a yawn on his arm as the intruder continues banging on the door like their life depends on it (hopefully it doesn’t, he’d have to feel pretty guilty about it and it’s too early for strong emotions).

The door drags open to reveal Oikawa, arm still raised to bang on the door hard enough to make the surrounding wall shake.

“What,” says Hajime, “could you want.”

“Good morning, Iwa-chan!” His voice grates on Hajime’s eardrums. “Are you ready for a day full of fun?”

“It’s barely eight.”

“You’re already awake,” Oikawa points out. Hajime glares, and in the second it takes to formulate a response Oikawa pushes past him into the apartment. “Did you make tea? Ah, there’s extra for me! How domestic of you.”

“Make your own damn tea,” says Hajime on principle, even though there’s enough in the teapot for at least two and a half cups.

If only his mother could see them now, he thinks, as Oikawa goes banging around the kitchen looking for a clean mug, waking up half the building along the way. The last time he’d spoken to her, a few days after he’d moved into his new place, she went on about him _reconnecting_ with his (former?) best friend. Apparently all their old neighbors were just dying to know about _Tooru-kun, how is that boy? Has he finally settled down?_ It’s a weird feeling. For the last five years he’d lived in a city full of strangers, seven hours away; no one in Nara kept up with university volleyball in Miyagi, no one knew who Oikawa Tooru was.

Not that Hajime would have known how he was doing, anyway. He hadn’t spoken regularly to Oikawa since university—work schedules and expensive train tickets prevented them from regular calls and visits, and over time they just sort of… dwindled. Which is fine, that’s normal, it happens to plenty of people. Even when those people were best friends for years.

Except now he’s back home, so close to his old haunts and to Oikawa himself, and it's—weird. It's familiar, but also not at all.

And now Oikawa slides into the chair opposite him, a steaming mug clutched in his hands. To his credit, he lets Hajime finish half his tea—half the strength Hajime needs to deal with him at this hour—before talking at him again. “The weather is supposed to be nice today, so we’re going sightseeing. I hope you don’t have plans today.” Hajime gives a noncommittal grunt. "Or— _do_ you?"

Behind the sarcasm there’s real hesitation, and for good reason. Between moving and running around seeing semi-long-lost relatives, none of Hajime’s days off have actually been free for weeks. He thinks longingly of the laundromat.

“No,” he relents, after a long, steadying pull of tea. Oikawa brightens.

“Good! Then your city tour continues today. The weather is supposed to be perfect, so we can do whatever we want.”

From the moment he’d texted Oikawa to tell him about his move back to Sendai—their first real contact in months, Hajime had hesitated over the _send_ button until he remembered how long he’s known this man—Oikawa had declared himself Hajime’s personal tour guide. More specifically, he’d said, _iwa-chan you should let me take you around the city so you can look at my cute face whenever you want!!_ , a message that Hajime conveniently forgot about—until their mothers caught wind of Oikawa’s plans, and two phone calls and a headache later he was essentially locked into a blood contract for a weird, meandering tour of the city on Oikawa Tooru’s whim.

But as far as blood contracts go, it’s been pretty enjoyable, although grudgingly so. He’s seeing Sendai as he should (or, how Oikawa thinks he ought to) as he never did in high school, being removed from the city limits by a train ride. It might even be better that he sees this broader view of the city now with the perspective gained a year out from university.

This is the (optimistic) view he chooses to take today as they hang onto handles in the subway, swaying with every bump in the tracks. Oikawa had refused to tell him where they were going, citing _the element of surprise_ , and at Kita-Sendai station he taps Hajime’s arm and hops off without a word.

“Where are we going?” grumbles Hajime as they emerge onto the street. This part of the city is mostly unremarkable; Jozenji-dori is a half hour’s walk away, and it’s a weekday, so most of Sendai is still at work.

“Patience is a virtue, Iwa-chan. It’s only a twenty-minute walk from here. You haven’t let yourself get out of shape, have you?” Hajime rolls his eyes at Oikawa’s back.

It’s not until they reach a narrow set of stairs leading away from the main street that Hajime recognizes the significance of this excursion. _Rinno-ji_ , a small sign reads: an unassuming marker to match the street surrounding it. He'd always intended to come here, but never with any real sense of urgency. Every once in a while his mother would say, _Oh, we should go visit Rinno-ji on your next break, I hear it's so beautiful_. And then nothing would happen.

Now he regrets not venturing into the temple sooner. After the stairs end, the landscape opens up into lush greenery, muffling the scent of car exhaust with that certain dampness of morning dew on leaves. A quiet pond rests in the middle of the gardens before the temple. There are one million people who live in Sendai but there is only one who knows how Hajime needs a place like this, a sanctuary hidden amidst the roar of the city, and as the din of a hundred thousand lives fades out he sends a silent thank-you to whatever deity might listen.

"How did you find this place?" he asks Oikawa eventually, his voice pitched low. Technically they don't have to lower their voices, they're not yet inside the temple, but it feels as if they ought to. “Have you been here before?” Oikawa slants him a look.

"We've heard the name mentioned enough, I thought I should see for myself."

"But you don’t like temples. Why go now?" Oikawa Tooru was made for the hustle and bustle of cities, lit up at every hour, restless and thrumming with life—not places like this where the quiet weight of the atmosphere settles into your bones.

Now he only shrugs, face turned up to the sky. “Someone at work said it was nice.”

They spend most of their time in the gardens, breathing in the fresh air, and when they finally step into the temple itself Oikawa moves ahead of him to pick up incense.

“What?” he asks when Hajime stares. “Aren’t you going to take some?” A couple nearby shoots them a disapproving look. Oikawa doesn’t like incense, he says the smoke stings his eyes.

“Of course,” Hajime mutters.

The twos and threes before them step up to bow their heads in unison, their footsteps quiet as they leave together. Normally he doesn’t mind quiet—he welcomes it, he likes being able to hear himself think, and in temples he likes the feeling that there is someone watching out for him. Some good-tempered ancestor, maybe. But right now it’s strange, watching Oikawa out of the corner of his eye as they wait their turn. He isn’t fidgeting at all. Hajime wonders what he is like in the dead of winter, his least favorite season, when the biting cold slows down the city to a snail’s pace. When they were still in primary school, he used to run laps around the house, desperate to burn all that restless energy.

The _clink_ of a coin startles him from his thoughts—Oikawa has tossed in his offering, and now he closes his eyes. Hajime hastens to do the same, half a beat too late.

The quiet persists as they leave the temple and the gardens, all the way back to the subway. Their knees bump to the muffled soundtrack of subway cars rattling along the tracks and music leaking through the headphones of a girl standing nearby.

_Thank you_ , Hajime wants to say, but it feels inadequate. He doesn’t have words to describe how his lungs seemed to expand more easily from the moment they stepped inside, or how he hadn’t noticed the underlying tension in his shoulders until it had gone.

“Hey,” he says. Oikawa raises his head to blink at him—he’s dozing off, slumped over at an uncomfortable-looking angle. And after all that to-do about starting their morning early.

“Hm?”

“Today was—good.” He clears his throat to get rid of whatever’s sticking in it. “I liked it.”

“Aw, Iwa-chan, you do like my tour after all.” Oikawa grins, less smirky than usual, and Hajime… doesn’t like it. That’s been happening whenever they spend time together, Oikawa tossing out little jabs almost hesitantly, like he’s relearning what he can tease Hajime about. He doesn’t like it, it’s too—gentle. The two of them aren’t fragile goods, they don’t need _handling_.

“Shut up.”

Oikawa settles back into his seat in that ridiculous scrunched-up position that’s going to give him neck problems in ten years. “We can come back soon, if you like it that much.”

“You don’t mind?” Maybe he doesn’t dislike temples that much, after all.

One of Oikawa’s eyes squints open. “Did you think I would?”

Hajime shrugs. For the past few minutes they’ve been going through a tunnel, lit only by the harsh fluorescent lights of the subway, but now the tunnel ends and they’re flooded with sunlight. Hajime blinks at the change. Their stop isn’t for another twenty minutes, so despite the brightness Oikawa closes his eyes and tips his head back.

“I don’t mind. I’ll go back anytime.” And then he’s asleep—typical. It’s Hajime who has that innate ability to fall asleep anytime, anywhere, but Oikawa has always been _the_ fussiest sleeper, unless Hajime is around, and especially if Oikawa uses him as a pillow. Then he’s out like a light in seconds: on the bus home from volleyball games, on subway rides like this one. They haven’t done that since high school, but Hajime can remember viscerally the softness of Oikawa’s hair on his neck and the rumble of the subway under his feet, almost like it is today, and he has to catch his breath.

He doesn’t realize they’ve reached their stop until the doors are sliding shut and he jumps up with a curse, startling Oikawa awake. The next stop leaves them a twenty-minute walk back instead of ten, but neither of them complains the whole way home.

 

* * *

 

Days slide into weeks, weeks into a month, and with the dawn of April comes _sakura_ , rolling up across the country in a wave of blooms. Everywhere Hajime turns it’s all anyone’s talking about—cherry blossom reports on every news station, banners advertising local festivals. Hajime’s mother invites him back home, but he can’t take enough time off for the trip back and forth. Besides, his Sunday has been forcibly reserved by one Oikawa Tooru.

Much to Oikawa’s delight, the trees reach full bloom just before then, so when the weekend rolls around the first petals are beginning to fall, scattered over the ground like lace. Oikawa insists that he knows of the _best_ picnic spot, so Hajime is obligated to haul their basket of food (because he’s the one stuck carrying it, of course) along the streets of Sendai until they reach the park, just far enough from the subway to be inconvenient.

“Why couldn’t we go somewhere closer?”

“I already told you, this place is prettier. You have no appreciation for aesthetic, Iwa-chan.”

“You could carry your own food, at least,” he mutters. “What’d you put in here? It weighs a ton.”

“If Iwa-chan was a true gentleman, he’d want to carry it for me,” Oikawa sniffs, but to Hajime’s surprise he takes the basket anyway.

It doesn’t matter much; they reach the park within the next few minutes. One edge of the wide open space is lined with festival booths. When night falls the paper lanterns will make the trees glow soft and white, but for now they hang unlit, bright pops of color amongst the pale blossoms. Oikawa veers away from the main lawn toward a space between some trees off the main path: too small for the extended families scattered across the lawn, but perfectly sized for just two or three.

“Hmm, this will be nice,” says Oikawa, dropping the basket at his feet. “People can be so noisy, it ruins the atmosphere.” Hajime takes a moment to consider the ten million times Oikawa had talked his ear off when all Hajime wanted was some goddamn peace and quiet—on the subway, in temples (earning them dirty looks from every direction), late at night in his bedroom when they were supposed to be sleeping before a big test the next day—but chooses to keep his mouth shut for now.

At a glance Oikawa seems to be in a better mood than usual, chattering about something-or-other as he unpacks their lunch. But there’s something about him that seems—on edge, is the best way Hajime can categorize it. It’s in the way his hands move so quick, laying everything out on their picnic blanket, and how his mouth goes faster still. He is rambling about some kind of trendy dessert his boss had mentioned, gesturing widely with the chopsticks he’s just pulled out.

“It’s from Germany and it sounds so _strange_ , he said it has all these little pieces—”

“What are you doing?” Hajime reaches over to take the chopsticks from him before he pokes someone’s eye out, but Oikawa holds them out of reach.

“No, no, let me.” And he snaps his mouth shut, goes back to his task. Hajime blinks a couple times, disoriented, and when he comes back into focus their whole lunch has been arranged neatly without his notice. He squints at Oikawa’s proud smile.

“What’s with you?”

“Nothing!” The squint intensifies. “I’m just happy to be here on my day off. Aren’t you?”

“Yeah, but—” Hajime shakes his head. The little pout on Oikawa’s face means that he won’t get any real answers without some serious digging, and it’s not worth the trouble.

So he focuses instead on what they’ve brought: there’s _hanami dango_ from a booth they’d stopped at a few minutes before, still steaming hot; homemade _bento_ ; the brand of _sake_ Hajime likes from a place near Oikawa’s apartment. The store is a half hour’s walk away and the _sake_ more pricey than he’s strictly comfortable with, so he can almost never justify buying it—but here it is in front of him. He knows Oikawa worked late last night, he must have bought it early this morning. And there are little embellishments atop the food prettier than any Hajime’s seen Oikawa make for himself in the past. His _bento_ are always neat, but he’s too impatient to spend much time decorating.

“You did all this,” says Hajime. It’s supposed to be a question, but it comes out a statement.

“Of course. It’s a special occasion, isn’t it?”

“Did Suga help you with this?” Sugawara and Oikawa had begun sharing a place during university; even after Oikawa’s graduation a year ago, the location and rent were convenient enough that they decided to stay. Countless are the times that Hajime’s witnessed Suga stumble in the door after a thirty-hour hospital shift and collapse onto the couch with barely a hello. (He is glad, once more, that he decided against medical school.)

He glances up to see a flicker in Oikawa’s smile—just a tick, not enough to be a flinch. “Are you joking? Kou-chan couldn’t make a lunch like this if his life depended on it.”

Hajime shrugs. “Neither could I. Too much work, you’re just going to eat it.”

Oikawa lets out a little _hmph_. “I told him the decorations would be a waste on you, but he did them anyway.” He scrunches his nose, petulant now. “He can make _bento_ look nice. He just can’t make anything to put in them.”

They make small prayers and lapse into near-silence as they eat. This is familiar: pausing to flick ants away from their discarded wrappers, murmured comments about the quality of the _dango_ (very good, but none can measure up to Oikawa’s mother’s).

Oikawa is first to break their silence properly, some time later—he clears his throat, sits up straight.

“Thank you for coming here,” he says, quiet. Hajime glances up. Oikawa won’t meet his eye, looking instead at his now-empty _bento_ box. “I could have gone with some of my coworkers, but.” He shrugs, his tone light and his shoulders heavy. _My coworkers_ , he says casually, like he isn’t surrounded by high-profile, ultra-successful businessmen every day. Taking any of his colleagues to lunch would be a smart business move, and from what Hajime’s heard Oikawa is making all the right ones, clawing up the ranks faster than anyone the company has seen. Surely a promotion isn’t far away—and yet on a precious day off, here he sits with Hajime and homemade _bento_ , his every movement deliberate.

It’s this realization that prevents him from saying, _You dragged me here, asshole, I had no choice_ , like he normally would. Instead he just says, “Sure,” and, “You did a good job with the _bento_.”

“Don’t tell me you’re only here for the food.”

Hajime scoffs. “Course not. You’re my friend.”

Even as he says it, something in him flinches at that distinction, _friend_. It doesn’t sit right on his tongue. Shouldn’t they be more than that? But the time they spent apart stretched out so long, maybe they’re not even friends anymore—though saying that is to forget the partnership that’s lasted nearly their whole lives.

What do you call the feeling that you’ve got one foot rooted in the past while your hands are dragged farther and farther forward, this anxious game of tug-of-war?

Oikawa gives a little hum, picking at his napkin. He’s going to shred the entire thing into bits if he’s not careful. “I _am_ grateful you’re here, though,” he says. “I mean, that you’re here today, yes, but also that you’re living here now.”

“Me too,” says Hajime, though he doesn’t know if he means it yet. Switching to city life takes a kind of adjusting he isn’t sure he wants to undergo. “I’d be more glad if I didn’t have to run so many errands.” He’s happy to be near his extended family—really, he is. His grandparents’ mobility is dwindling and he knows how frustrating that can be—he sees the people going to the neurological rehab unit at the clinic; it’s difficult enough to cross a room, much less get to the grocery store—but it’s taxing sometimes, running across town for medicines and herbs and groceries so often.

“They don’t know how lucky they are, having you here.” Hajime looks up, startled by the quiet vehemence. Oikawa isn’t looking at his hands anymore, he looks Hajime straight in the eye. “They are. So am I. And—you’ve been back such a short time, only a month now, but trust me, it’s already been better than all of the past two years. I know, it sounds dramatic,” he concedes, raising his hands in anticipation of Hajime’s argument. “But it’s true. I wasn’t _miserable_ , but do you know that feeling where you’re just… waiting for something? Like there are ants all over your skin, and it’s just awful, because you don’t know where the feeling is coming from or why it won’t go away. And it just lasts for months and months—although I’ve had it for years, I guess. It’s just worse now.”

He pauses then, but it doesn’t seem like he wants an answer. Something in Hajime’s mind is clicking into place—he knows exactly what Oikawa means, and it’s eerie in its accuracy. That feeling Oikawa is describing, he knows it well, though not until recently.

“Oikawa,” he begins.

“Please let me finish.” He blinks. Oikawa has squared his shoulders, like when their volleyball kouhai wouldn’t sit still while he was trying to impart direction. “I’ve finally figured out where that feeling comes from. It took me a while—well, it took me much too long, but _you_ know how stubborn I am. I think I didn’t want to figure it out at first, so I could keep chasing it. It’s easier to just chase things sometimes, even if it’s in circles, don’t you think?”

Of course he does—they’re Seijou kids, deep down below all the layers of adulthood still forming; the chase is the truest thing they know.

And Hajime doesn’t want this one to end yet. There is something fearful curdling in his stomach; he is still running too fast to stop without crashing. He needs to say something, but he needs to hear the end of Oikawa’s speech, _but_ —something is wrong with this moment here that he doesn’t know how to articulate.

“The thing is, Iwa-chan,” says Oikawa, still going, “it’s been so many years now, but I’ve always…” He pauses to draw in a long breath, looking down at his hands. He has thrown the ball up into the air, he hangs in midair at the top of his jump, the serve is coming but Hajime isn’t in any position to receive.

“Oikawa, _wait_.”

Hajime leans forward. A single _sakura_ petal has fallen into Oikawa’s hair without his notice; it trembles just out of his line of vision, right over his forehead. He leans in, and Oikawa goes so still—he might have stopped breathing, his lips part in surprise, his eyes flick down and back up—and Hajime plucks the petal from his hair.

“Here.” He extends the petal in his upturned palm, presenting it for examination. It is perfectly formed, blush-pink, so light he can barely feel its weight.

“Oh,” says Oikawa.

“Couldn’t take you seriously with this,” says Hajime, but Oikawa just stares at him.

He sits and stares for so long that Hajime begins to worry, on top of the roiling fear in his gut, that he’s seriously misstepped. And then all Oikawa says is, “You interrupted me.” He doesn’t even sound offended, just—startled.

“Sorry.” Hajime swallows hard and hopes he doesn’t notice. “What were you going to say?”

“You—” Oikawa shakes his head, blinks fast as if coming out of a trance. “It’s nothing. Don’t mind.” He becomes preoccupied with shooing some ants away from their blanket, tsking about picnics. Hajime frowns.

“Tell me.”

“No.”

“Oikawa—”

“I said, it doesn’t matter.” He laughs, too loud. “It’s not like it’s some big secret, Iwa-chan, don’t be so nosy. I’ll tell you later, at the right time.” Hajime stares. _The right time_ —as if now wouldn’t be a good time to have whatever kind of deep personal talk Oikawa has in mind, when they’re alone with the whole day in front of them.

“What the… what does that mean?”

“I want dessert,” says Oikawa. “Let’s go walk around.” He begins to wrap up the remains of their lunch.

When Oikawa used to get cryptic like this when they were younger, Hajime could generally assume his mind was occupied with new volleyball plays or a tricky opponent. Less often was it something deeper, which no amount of poking and prodding could discern. Now that they’re off the court it’s more likely the latter. It’s just as frustrating now as it was then—especially with that kind of weird lead-in speech—but the moment is in Oikawa’s hands now. (Rather, he’s wrenched the moment into his hands by force.) It’s his decision to call it out or let it pass—and it’s Hajime’s decision to accept it or not. This is volleyball logic but somehow they’ve stretched it to apply to the rest of their lives anyway.

Oikawa stands to throw their trash away, and Hajime watches his back. He knows Oikawa well enough that he recognizes the forced casualness of his gestures. But it’s their day off, he’s supposed to be enjoying himself, not arguing, and it’s not like this weird anxious feeling is any fun.

“Eh, you always want dessert.”

So they wander among the booths, surrounded by a din of voices raised in celebration, and a dozen-odd things could catch his attention but none have a stronger pull than Oikawa. He bobs in and out of Hajime’s space, pulling him one way to buy sweets or another to win a goldfish, his manic energy returned to normal. Not five minutes can pass without Oikawa commanding his attention once more, or Hajime turning to seek it out himself.

The time and place are different—Seijou traded for Sendai, weekend practices for _hanami_ —but this palpable bond between them, that’s always the same. He’s still relearning the nuances of countering that magnetic pull; it’s been years since he’s last felt it and muscle memory only gets him so far.

“Oikawa,” says Hajime. Oikawa turns, the bagged goldfish he’d won clutched in one hand.

“I think I’ll name him Iwa-chan,” he says, still on his last train of thought. “Should we go buy a home for him? I don’t know if I have a bowl—”

“ _Oikawa_.”

“Hmm?” He pauses with a little smile on his lips, and Hajime recognizes this too: for the first time today Oikawa is actually _relaxed_ , not preoccupied with the ten million things firing through his brain. He stands there with that stupid goldfish and the line of his shoulders is smooth, no tension; he has an abundance of time and nowhere to be. Hajime cannot remember the last time he looked like this. _Good_ , he thinks abruptly. This is how they should be on Sundays—unencumbered, enjoying the spring breeze and a day off work, worries tossed over a shoulder.

“That thing’s going to suffocate if you don’t get it in a bowl soon,” he says.

“Well, that settles it. We’ll make him a home.”

 

* * *

 

(13:47) **what are you doing?**

Hajime frowns at his phone, a bit of rice paused halfway to his mouth. He’s only just started his lunch break; he’d been looking forward to a moment of rest in the middle of one of the most hectic days this month thus far.

(13:49) _lunch. i still have four hours after this. why?_

(13:50) **stay there**

As if he’d get up and leave in the middle of his workday.

He sneaks glances at his phone as works through his lunch over the next quarter hour, but it remains silent. This morning’s _conbini_ run had yielded his favorite lunch, for once. Hopefully whatever Oikawa wants isn’t too time-consuming so he can actually enjoy it.

The door to the break room kicks open, slamming against the opposite wall.

“What the—” Hajime whips around to find Oikawa framed in the doorway. He’s still in his fancy suit, which he wears for the job that he’s _supposed to be at right now_. “What are you doing?” he nearly shouts, until he remembers he’s still at work and lowers his voice. “How the hell did you get in here?”

“Iwa-chan,” says Oikawa, and swallows hard. That’s when Hajime glances down and notices: everything about Oikawa is in pristine condition—there isn’t a speck of dust on his coat, even though he probably took the subway here—except for the fine tremor in his hands.

He looks up and Oikawa is staring at him. This he remembers all too well with a chilling sense of clarity, that wide-eyed stare screaming louder than any voice. He hasn’t seen it in years. Probably not since high school, after Oikawa fucked up his knee for the first time and couldn’t keep up with the team’s stretches, when he showed up late at night and inevitably hogged the entire mattress when he passed out in Hajime’s bed with frustrated exhaustion. It’s unsettling—now that they aren’t playing volleyball together he can’t discern the context for that look, so he doesn’t know how to fix it. He can’t offer to hit his tosses, or help him through his exercises.

All he can do now is gesture at the space next to him on the long bench at the break room table. He doesn’t say anything, because he doesn’t need to (and maybe he is afraid he’ll say the wrong thing, and that Oikawa will shut down and it’ll be all his fault).

Oikawa walks to him without a word and slides onto the bench, leaving a careful space between them. Hajime is thankful for the lack of people in the break room—he’d been farther behind schedule than usual that morning, so everyone else has already been and gone. He watches Oikawa at the edge of his periphery, hands curled into fists on his knees. His breath shakes as it pulls in and out of his lungs.

"Work?" asks Hajime, and Oikawa nods. “Do you want to…” He squeezes his eyes shut.

They’ve been seeing each other every weekend without fail, and Hajime likes to think he is learning how to know Oikawa Tooru again, even though he’s lost the level of fluency previously attained in grade school. So he resumes eating in silence, letting Oikawa try to relax for a moment. After he gets up for another napkin he slides back onto the bench closer than they’d been sitting before; now they’re pressed together at shoulder and elbow and knee. Oikawa’s eyelids flicker but do not open.

As the minutes tick past he levels out in increments: first his hands relax, revealing fingernail marks in his palms (he probably did that all the way to the hospital, he’s going to give himself joint pain if he keeps that up), then his eyes open so he can watch Hajime’s movements with an intensity that would be creepy if it were anyone else. Eventually he reaches over to steal the last _shumai_ , prompting Hajime to break their silence.

“Go buy your own lunch.”

Oikawa hums around the dumpling, chewing obnoxiously. “Thank you for the food,” he says, sing-song to piss Hajime off, but it’s still quieter than usual.

“Asshole,” mutters Hajime. Another minute passes and Oikawa finishes off the last of the rice. “When’s your break over?”

“Five minutes ago.” He takes a gulp from Hajime’s water bottle.

“Seriously? You’re gonna get fired.”

“No I won’t.” Somehow he manages to convey a dismissive hand wave through his voice alone. “I’m getting sponge cake on my way back. Do you want any?”

“Not if it’s black sesame.” He wraps up the empty box as Oikawa stands, shaking out his shoulders. His pager buzzes against the table: his next patient has arrived. “Hey, Oikawa—”

“Hm?” Oikawa pauses with his hand on the door. He isn’t shaking at all.

“Be more careful,” says Hajime, after a pause. “Don’t fuck yourself over.” Oikawa smiles faintly, like he knows something Hajime doesn’t.

“Of course not, Iwa-chan.”

 

* * *

 

“I’m too old for this,” says Hajime as he stretches his quads.

“So negative, Iwa-chan. You’re twenty-three, you’re supposed to be in your prime.” Oikawa looks altogether too excited about a measly game of pickup volleyball. They hadn’t even been able to find enough people to form two proper teams, so they’re playing 5-on-5.

Hajime straightens, then reaches down to touch his toes. “Eh, at least I didn’t peak during university like you.”

The face Oikawa makes is hilariously put out, his mouth falling open, forehead scrunching the way Hajime knows he hates. But he’s spared the usual defensive rant by the arrival of Hanamaki and Matsukawa, who shout their greetings from halfway across the park.

“Makki, Mattsun!” Oikawa flails an arm in a greeting, nearly punching Hajime in the face before he slaps his arm away.

Rambunctious hellos are exchanged and their jackets form a pile atop an empty bench next to the volleyball. It hadn’t occurred to Hajime that it might feel odd to be in the company of his old friends again, in such a familiar context—Seijou kids on a volleyball court in the height of spring, it might as well be a Monday afternoon, playing two-on-two in Matsukawa’s backyard—but no such discomfort arises as they warm up, exchanging jabs (both verbal and physical).

“How early did you guys get here, anyway?” asks Hanamaki as he ties his shoes. “We thought we’d be the first ones here.”

“Ah, we should’ve known.” Matsukawa pokes him in the side. “Oikawa didn’t even sleep last night, he’s been here at the park since yesterday afternoon.”

“Of course not.” Oikawa sniffs. “If I did that, I would’ve had bags under my eyes. I would look terrible.”

“More terrible than you already do?” mutters Hajime.

“You’re so _mean_ , Iwa-chan. See,” Oikawa turns to the others in an exaggerated pout, “I told you, he’s gotten even worse.”

“I’ve heard Nara will do that to a man,” says Matsukawa gravely. “That deer park can really change you.”

“At least the fucking deer are better company than _some people_.”

Oikawa turns his nose up, and Hajime braces himself for what’s incoming. “Iwa-chan, I know you’re jealous that everyone else got to spend so much time with me, but you don’t have to be so roundabout—” And he breaks off in a yelp as Hajime shoves him hard enough to tip him over from where he’s squatted to tie his shoes.

The rest of their friends show up in twos and threes—Suga with Sawamura, some guys from Oikawa’s old university team. Oikawa and Hanamaki spend five minutes fiddling with the net to see if they can’t keep it from sagging until Hajime yells at them to finish warming up so they don’t hurt themselves.

“Yes, kaa-san,” Hanamaki deadpans. Hajime throws a ball at his head; he returns it easily, grinning.

It takes a bit of shuffling to figure out how to divide the teams. Oikawa insists on being on the same team as the rest of the Seijou gang for the first set, which leaves an uneven number of middle blockers, but then Sugawara points out that they’ve already got weird numbers. They might as well do whatever they want.

Sawamura loses the coin toss, so the first serve goes to Hajime. As he spins the ball in his hands, the deja vu is unnerving, looking at Matsukawa and Hanamaki and Oikawa’s backs as he steps up to the line. He remembers the roar of Sendai City Gymnasium, of the gym at his university, and with one last glance at Oikawa’s back he tosses the ball up and jumps.

They win the set by a fair margin. When it’s over (too quickly), Sugawara is the first to speak up.

“Let’s change it up,” he calls out, and grins at Hajime. “I want to toss for you.”

After that it’s borderline chaos. For the next set they switch spikers—Hajime moves over to Sugawara’s side and Sawamura goes to Oikawa’s—and then Oikawa wants to try a two-setter rotation, except none of the others know how to toss decently. He pouts until the start of the third set: Oikawa with Hanamaki, Matsukawa, and a couple guys from his university team, Hajime with Suga and Sawamura and the rest.

It’s a close game—neither team can manage more than a one-point lead, and as the score climbs higher Hajime can sense Oikawa’s excitement (and insane competitive streak) intensifying. The next time he steps up to serve they’re tied 16-16. Oikawa grins as he spins the ball in his hands.

Hajime sees it in slow motion: the toss a little too high for Oikawa’s preference, the way he compensates by jumping higher than usual—and his foot landing hard at the wrong angle on the court, legs crumpling beneath him.

He doesn’t see Sawamura receive it perfectly, nor Suga catch the ball from the air. His focus is only Oikawa. Before he even registers the intent to move he’s running; he ducks under the net and sprints, falling to his knees before Oikawa, who hasn’t budged a centimeter. Hajime’s hands hover over his knee, frantic, hesitating.

“What is it, where did you—” But Oikawa won’t let him touch yet, he grabs at Hajime’s forearms, his grip a vice.

“It’s the right one again, I think it’s…”

They hold there for some panicked seconds—it could be hours, or days—before Oikawa lets out a breath he’ll later swear wasn’t shaking.

“It’s fine, I’m fine. It was just a fall.”

“Oikawa—”

“I mean it, I’m fine!”

A gentle hand brushes his shoulder. Hajime jumps at the touch, but it’s only Sugawara, kneeling beside him.

“Are you hurt?” he asks quietly. Oikawa shakes his head. “Is there any pain?”

“No.”

“Oikawa,” Hajime says again. It is _just like him_ to wave everyone away, pretend like he’s fine so he can keep playing, which is exactly how he fucked up his knee so bad in the first place, the goddamn idiot.

“There’s not,” says Oikawa. Suga gives him a searching look, and Hajime’s about to interject when he realizes—the one who’s best at reading Oikawa Tooru is probably the one who’s spent the past three years living with him, compared against Hajime’s couple months of trial-and-error friendship. The thought stings him, but he shoves it aside. This is no time for self-pity.

“Here, if I may…” Suga probes his knee with steady hands, checking for swelling. The things Hajime should have been doing—because it’s his job as a physical therapist, and because Oikawa Tooru is his responsibility, and now in this time of urgency he’s failed. “Do you think you can stand?”

“Yes.”

“Tooru…”

“Trust me.” They lock eyes, caught up in some unspoken argument—by now they’ve probably been going back and forth on this just as long as Hajime did in high school—and after a moment Suga nods.

“Looks like it was just a fall,” he says. Oikawa, still on the ground, sticks his tongue out at Hajime like a child.

“I told you, it was just a little slip. You worry too much, Iwa-chan.” He waves away the hand Suga offers to help him up and stands on his own, looking at the palm of his right hand in distaste.

“Look at that,” he says. He holds up his hand: the palm is scraped raw where he’d landed on the concrete, angry red standing out against the pale skin. He clucks his tongue. “How ugly.”

“What, that’s all?” asks Hajime. “No one will notice.”

“The businessmen from America always want to shake hands. They’ll notice.”

“I bet they’ll say, ‘Look how pathetic this one is. He can’t even moisturize his hands, how will we trust him with our company’s money?’” teases Suga.

“Rude,” gasps Oikawa, and off they go, bickering in the way of longtime roommates. It’s not a moment before Matsukawa and Hanamaki join in, never ones to miss a chance at making fun of their old friend.

But when the game resumes, Hajime can’t help the lapse in his concentration. He can’t stop looking at Oikawa’s hands: the curve of his fingers, the flick of his wrist as he gestures. The perfect form with which they contact the volleyball when he tosses to a wing spiker from his old university team. So when Hajime also notices things like the frustrated twist of Oikawa’s mouth after an unsatisfactory toss, or the way he rubs at his bad knee when he thinks no one is looking, he tells himself later that it’s nothing.

He’s a pretty observant person in general—what time others spend talking, he spends listening, and watching—but here it’s on a different level. He is an expert at observing Oikawa Tooru. So it’s no wonder that Hajime finds his gaze dragging back to him again and again (his hands, long and elegant, flipping over for a setter dump that makes Sawamura curse and Oikawa laugh). Nothing out of the ordinary.

But it doesn’t feel ordinary. His chest is tight with something like anxiety, even after their game is finished and they’re jammed into Oikawa and Suga’s apartment with Hanamaki and Matsukawa for post-game _ramen_. It removes him from the banter flying around the kitchen, and that bothers him—these are his best friends, he should be able to enjoy the evening without worrying himself sick over an injury that didn’t even happen.

He’s worrying himself sick over it. The ramen doesn’t even smell good anymore.

Hajime has learned that if his feelings don’t sort themselves out within a reasonable time, there are two possibilities. One: there’s some larger problem he himself can’t see, and someone needs to point it out to him. Two: he’s overreacting, and someone still needs to point it out to him. The latter is simpler, and (probably) more likely, so he glances around as Oikawa and Suga bicker over whose turn it is to do dishes. Suga’s got that all-knowing look that probably means he’s good at discerning this kind of thing, but judging by the volume of his and Oikawa’s argument, it’s not winding down anytime in the next ten minutes. Hanamaki and Matsukawa haven’t seen them regularly in months.

Which leaves Sawamura, who sits across the table from him, watching the commotion in the kitchen with amusement. He’s significantly less likely to laugh than Hanamaki or Matsukawa, and more likely than Suga not to mention it to Oikawa.

“During that second game,” he begins quietly. Sawamura looks at him curiously. “After Oikawa fell, and I thought he… After he fell on that serve. I wasn’t—acting weird or anything.” It accidentally comes out like a statement rather than a question, but Hajime’s pretty sure his meaning is clear enough. _Tell me I’m okay._

Sawamura considers him. It’s different from when Oikawa looks at him, cogs spinning frenetic behind his eyes, racing to a conclusion faster than anyone else. It’s more calm, steady, and when Sawamura speaks a few moments later Hajime knows he’s receiving only the most careful advice.

“I don’t think so,” he says, “though I’m not the best person to ask.” He looks up at Sugawara making his way across the kitchen toward them, having won the argument, and smiles small, like his mouth is so accustomed to the action that he doesn’t notice it anymore. “I haven’t known you guys as long—and I’m just not as good at that kind of thing.” His grin turns lopsided, sheepish. “But I don’t think you seemed much different from usual. If that’s, uh, what you’re asking.”

“What is it?” asks Suga. He drops a kiss on Sawamura’s temple, making him flush red, before sliding into the chair next to him across from Hajime. Something tiny inside him flinches at the gesture, though he doesn’t know why—he’s around couples all the time, it’s not like he’s weird about it or anything. “You’re talking about you and Tooru, aren’t you?”

That was fast. Sawamura glances over, guilty, but Hajime just shrugs. He should’ve known Sugawara would pick up on their conversation; he has hearing like a bat.

“It’s nothing,” he says. “I’m just—worried. He’s going to fuck up his knee again.”

“Mm, he does need to be more careful. It’s harder to get him to stop working when we don’t actually share a room. He can lock me out now.” His gaze shifts over to Oikawa in the kitchen, laughing at some joke of Hanamaki’s. “I don’t think anyone noticed anything, earlier today. If that’s what you were talking about.”

Hajime doesn’t know how to respond to this, so he just kind of grunts. (He forgets sometimes that Oikawa is the only one who can interpret him when he does this.)

“Iwa-chan,” Oikawa calls from the kitchen. “Help me win this argument. Was Yamamoto-sensei’s hair real, or was it a wig?”

Hajime stretches his memory back to their second-year English class: his seat by the tall windows, Oikawa’s breath on the back of his neck as he leaned forward to whisper things to make Hajime laugh, earning them both a lecture about speaking out of turn.

“Wig,” he says after a moment. “Definitely.”

“See!” Oikawa turns back to Hanamaki and Matsukawa triumphantly. “It was so obvious, even Iwa-chan noticed.”

“Hey, what’s that supposed to mean?”

“Ah, don’t start now,” says Matsukawa, slumping against the kitchen counter. “We’ll never eat. The _ramen_ is already getting cold.”

As they rise from the table, Sugawara pauses, hanging back from the rest of the group. The other four are already talking over each other, clustered around the counter as they attempt to figure out which bowl is which.

“What?” asks Hajime, because Suga is giving him that thoughtful look again.

“You and Tooru,” he begins, and then shrugs. “I was just thinking, you look at each other a lot.” And he walks away, leaving Hajime winded, and sort of aching, somewhere deep in his chest. Whatever that means.

 

* * *

 

Every time Hajime returns home, he is unnerved by how much is unchanged. But then again, it’s the little changes that are the most disquieting: different posters in the train station, or a fresh coat of paint on the bus stop nearest his house. And the presence of the man beside him (they are no longer boys), once always so comforting and now… still a comfort, in the strange way Oikawa has always been, but accompanied by that curl of not-quite-anxiety Hajime has come to know so well over the past months.

This tenth of June the country air is the kind of humid that precedes a thunderstorm, weighing heavy on his lungs. When they step over the threshold of Hajime’s childhood home, keys in hand, they are greeted not only by his mother but also half the Oikawa household, already cooking birthday dinner.

It’s always confusing when their families are all together; both Hajime and Oikawa refer to the others’ parents as if they were their own, so there’s a lot of gesturing to indicate who anyone’s speaking to. But it’s a familiar chaos that settles in as the smell of home cooking fills the house. Hajime’s mother sends him out of the kitchen to water the house plants (”You two take up too much room in here when we’re trying to cook, you’re too tall for your own good!”), so it’s just him with the watering can and the younger of Oikawa’s two older sisters, Kaneko, her feet tucked up on the couch.

“It’s been too long, Hajime-kun,” she chastises as he tends to his mother’s orchid. “You live so close now, why don’t you come home more often?”

“Train rides take all day, Neesan. I can’t take that much time off work.”

“I know, your patients need you. I just wish we would see you around here more.”

Every time Hajime comes home he remembers that even though he was born an only child, he will always have older siblings.

He moves on to the ferns. “I might have more time if your brother didn’t take up so much of mine,” he says, since Oikawa is in the kitchen and out of earshot.

“Oh?” Kaneko tilts her head. “Are you together much?”

“Too much,” he says. He allows himself a grin when she laughs. “Every spare minute he has, he’s bothering me. ‘Iwa-chan, I want milk bread. When is your next day off? I’m tired, will you make me dinner?’ Like he can’t cook for himself.”

“Ah, that’s just how he says it! _Iwa-chan_ ,” she mimics. It’s cute when she does it, nose scrunched to imitate her baby brother. “You have untapped potential for impressions, Hajime.”

“God, please don’t tell him that. I’d never hear the end of it.”

“It seems like you never hear the end of him anyway, though.” Hajime sighs, and she laughs. “I’m glad you see him so often. I never can. When I try to call, he only picks up half the time—and even when he does, half of _those_ times are apologies, because he can’t spare more than five minutes.” Hajime pauses over his mother’s ferns.

“Really?”

“Mm-hmm. I know he’s overworking himself—” They share an eye roll; if there’s one thing that will never change about the youngest Oikawa, it’s his ability to run himself into the ground— “but I hoped that you moving to Sendai would help with that. At first I was afraid it didn’t help at all. He’s gotten even worse about calling in the past few months, I think.” She shakes her head. “Maybe I was wrong. Well—I guess I was right, then. You _are_ helping him, the way you always have.”

His face warms. “You’re giving me too much credit, Neesan.”

“Nonsense. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to him.” She pauses, and Hajime knows what’s coming— “Other than me.”

“Of course, Neesan,” he says gravely.

“Hey, I know you’re laughing at me. You should take me seriously!”

“I always do, Neesan.”

“You better watch out, little brother, I’ll start calling you _Iwa-chan_.”

And at this he does laugh, watering can forgotten. Returning home can be unnerving, but it’s worth it for the reminder that he is not alone; he was raised on the dual foundations of Iwaizumis and Oikawas together. Not many are so lucky as to have the strength of one whole family behind them, and Hajime is twice as fortunate as they.

“ _Iwa-chan_ ,” Oikawa sings from somewhere behind him. Hajime’s bubble bursts with a vengeance. (Sometimes he doesn’t feel very lucky.) “When are you opening your birthday gifts?”

“After dinner, like always. Why are you even asking?” Hajime raises his eyes to the ceiling, bracing himself for a round of nagging, but a second later he’s startled by Oikawa’s heavy weight flopping onto his back. “ _Oi_ —get off me!”

“I’m only trying to love you,” Oikawa whines into his ear.

“Love me from over there! You’re going to break my back.”

“Are you saying I’ve gotten fat, Iwa-chan?”

Kaneko muffles her laughter as the two struggle for a moment, middle schoolers all over again, before Hajime gives up and lets Oikawa cling to him like some kind of freakish long-limbed starfish.

“You’re the worst,” he mutters.

“You _loooove_ it,” says Oikawa. His breath creeps down Hajime’s neck; he pretends it doesn’t make him shiver.

“Aw, how cute,” Kaneko calls from her vantage point on the sofa. “Some things don’t change at all, do they?”

Their mothers call them to dinner then, and everyone manages to squeeze into the kitchen and dining area: both sets of parents, Oikawa’s sisters (his brother is away on a business trip), Hajime leaning against the counter next to Oikawa, having forfeited chairs to their parents.

“You’ve outdone yourselves again,” declares Oikawa, and his mother smiles proudly. (Overachieving is genetic, Hajime is certain.) They’ve cooked all the dishes they always do for birthdays—plus _agedashi tofu_ , extra silky, since it is Hajime’s day after all. As the food disappears, conversation flows, swelling easily to accommodate the two babies of the family returned home.

Unsurprisingly, the conversation soon turns to Sendai: how was moving, is the city much different from Nara, is he sleeping well? The questions are standard, Hajime’s answered them a dozen times to every relative and acquaintance he knows, but here they hold the weight of genuine concern.

“Is he telling the truth, Tooru?” Hajime’s mother asks, frowning mock-sternly at him through her reading glasses. “I hope you both remember to take breaks, you work too much already. Do you have time to see each other?” Over her head, Kaneko meets Hajime’s eye and grins.

“Of course! I’ll always make time for Iwa-chan.”

“He has more time than I do,” says Hajime. “He should work more, if anything.”

“I work very hard, Iwa-chan. Why don’t you appreciate me?”

“I’d appreciate you more if you stopped making me run your errands.”

“That was only a few times.” Hajime stares, unmoved. “Three. Four? Maybe more—so what! That doesn’t matter.”

“He only asks because he knows you’ll do it,” says Oikawa’s other sister Aiko. She must be guessing, but it’s true—Hajime flushes red and Oikawa grins.

“You’re right!”

“Have you two gotten even closer?” asks Hajime’s mother. “I didn’t think it was possible.”

“You should hear him going on about Tooru,” says Kaneko, nodding at Hajime. “They’re like an old married couple already.”

“Aw? Iwa-chan, you were gossiping about me?” asks Oikawa around a mouthful of food. Hajime digs an elbow into his side, but he expertly maneuvers his plate so as not to drop his food.

“I wasn’t _gossiping_ , I was complaining to Neesan. She knows how annoying you are.”

“Hmph.” Oikawa scrunches his nose, and Hajime can’t help but laugh; he looks exactly like his sister’s impression earlier. “I’ll let you get away with being so mean this time, since it’s your birthday.”

“You don’t have to _let me_ do anything—”

“Don’t use that tone around our families, that’s so rude—”

“You see what I mean?” Kaneko interrupts, gesturing. “Married for years.”

They both snap their mouths shut, caught, as Oikawa’s sisters snicker into their food and their parents pretend they aren’t smiling.

“That’s not much different from how they’ve always been, though,” Aiko muses. “You remember how they were in grade school.”

“You could never find one without the other!”

“Sometimes Tooru couldn’t even fall asleep without Hajime-kun, it was so precious.” Oikawa’s eyes flick up to the ceiling, then down to his food—a subtle eye roll at his sisters without conveying disrespect. Hajime bites back a grin.

“We had a lot of sleepovers,” he agrees. Oikawa shoots him a glare.

“Whenever either of them disappeared, we knew where they had to be.” Hajime’s father is a man of few words; his words tend to be followed by a momentary pause, as if everyone is surprised that he’s actually spoken to the group at large.

“To tell the truth, I used to think Tooru had a bit of a crush on you, Hajime,” says Oikawa’s mother, laughing. Beside him, Oikawa goes utterly still.

“Really?” asks Hajime. He keeps his gaze firmly trained on Okaasan.

“Oh yes, in grade school,” she continues blithely, Hajime’s mother nodding along. “You two were always close, of course, but around that time I thought… well, I thought it was obvious! You tell me, though.”

“Okaasan, that’s so direct,” protests Kaneko.

Hajime turns, and Oikawa has resumed chewing a bite of _agedashi tofu_. He takes a long moment to swallow before speaking. “I’m afraid you misread me,” he says lightly. “Iwa-chan is my best friend. I’ve always been happy with that.”

Hajime’s chest feels tight; it takes a moment to realize it’s from holding his breath. He lets it out slow, a count to six, like he tells his patients before they begin their exercises. _Don’t rush in. Take a moment to clear your mind before you begin._

“Ah, I was sure I was right. I must be getting old.”

Then Oikawa’s father makes a joke about aging, Okaasan points out that he’s the older of the two, and that’s all it takes for the conversation to skip back to its previous noise level.

Eventually someone notices the late hour and the little party breaks up after a flurry of dishwashing, four Oikawas headed down the street to their own home. The youngest stays behind, overnight bag already stashed in a corner of Hajime’s bedroom. Birthday sleepovers are an age-old tradition, and Oikawa had _insisted_ upon carrying it on, having brought it up the week before. (“Seriously? We’re twenty-three, Oikawa.” “Yes, and we need to be together when you turn twenty-four so I can laugh at how old you’re getting.”)

There’s a moment when Hajime is pulling out extra blankets when he wonders, _Should I even bother with these?_ , a reflex after a million primary school sleepovers where Oikawa climbed into his bed despite the perfectly made futon, and they fell asleep huddled back-to-back. But that’s just a childhood residue. No reason for them to do that now.

To his surprise Oikawa actually makes up his own bed—maybe they really are growing up—but then steps all over it to retrieve his pillow.

“Maybe this year you’ll start going gray,” he teases. He pitches his voice low; Hajime’s parents have gone to bed.

“Maybe you will too. You’re only six weeks away.”

As they move around each other, they exchange small words— _I need to borrow toothpaste, do you have an extra pillow_ , nothing of consequence. And the entire time, Hajime feels like he’s going to crawl out of his own skin. If he doesn’t find an outlet for all this pent-up weirdness soon he’s going to blurt out something really stupid, like—

“So you had a crush on me.” Ah, there it is.

For a moment Oikawa freezes. Only his eyes move, flicking around the room, to the door. “What?”

“In grade school.” Too late to stop it now. Hajime trusts that he’ll pick up this train wreck and follow its source to the kitchen earlier.

“Oh—you mean what Okaasan said at dinner? Ha, of course not.” Oikawa laughs convincingly, but Hajime has known him for too long to fall for it. “I do remember _you_ having a crush, though,” he continues. “On Neesan.”

“What? I did not!”

“I didn’t say which of my sisters,” says Oikawa, with a shit-eating grin. Bastard. “It was Kaneko, wasn’t it? You would always blush whenever she came around.”

“No it wasn’t, asshole!”

“You can lie to yourself, but you can’t lie to me, Iwa-chan.” Hajime shoves his shoulder hard, and Oikawa stumbles back over the futon, putting space between them.

“You’re delusional,” he says as Oikawa makes stupid kissy faces at him. “I never had a crush on her. She reminds me too much of you.”

Shit, where’d that come from? He and Kaneko _are_ a lot alike: she’s only four years older than him, compared to his other siblings’ six and seven-year age gaps, and they share that wide-eyed innocent face and an insane competitive streak—but still.

Oikawa’s expression has gone carefully smooth. When he speaks again it’s with half the volume he had before, as if to an audience of none. “Right, of course.”

“Hey, Oikawa—I was kidding.” Hajime knows it was a mean joke, after their dinner conversation, but something in Oikawa’s expression hints deeper.

“Even if you didn’t, it doesn’t matter now,” he says after a moment. “Things aren’t like when we were kids, Iwa-chan.” The mood feels fragile, and Hajime is terrible with fragile situations.

“How do you mean?”

“Well, I’m not afraid of the dark anymore.” Oikawa glances up. He seems to be waiting, so Hajime picks up the thread.

“I don’t catch bugs in jars,” he offers. To this day, Oikawa teases him relentlessly for _Iwa-chan’s weird bug thing_ , as he calls it, and Hajime’s nature-loving parents had only encouraged the habit. At least it’s way less intense now than it was in childhood.

“You remember to take baths every day now, I hope.”

“Hey, _you_ used to wipe your nose with your shirt.”

“You got mud all over my mother’s new carpet!” They have to muffle their laughter at the memory.

“And you can sleep by yourself now.”

“I can,” Oikawa agrees. “It’s like I don’t need you at all.” Even though Hajime technically just said it himself, that stings for some indiscernible reason, and his next retort dies in his throat. Oikawa kneels to sit on the futon, patting the spot next to him expectantly. “Iwa-chan, it’s your turn. Hey—what’s wrong?”

Hajime doesn’t sit. His muscles have locked up; that crawling-ant sensation is back again. “Nothing. Never mind.”

“You know, I can’t rely on you forever, Iwa-chan.” This is true and they both know it. It’s just, the words and that matter-of-fact tone, they keep _stinging_ , white-hot needles in his skin. “While you were off in Nara, I was here, learning to be without you.”

“Is that what you’ve been doing?”

“What, are you offended?” Oikawa’s derisive now, not mocking but close to it. “You should be proud of me. I’m doing _so well_.”

“That’s kind of fucked, though.” He’s overreacting, he knows he is, but he can’t stop the words leaving his mouth and it scares him—this never happens to him, he’s not a talkative person, he doesn’t _do_ this—but he has to keep going. Train wreck, no stopping, etc. “We’ve been friends for this long, and you just—said that. That’s messed up, Oikawa.”

“How is that wrong?” Oikawa stands, and Hajime has to readjust to looking slightly up, instead of down to the floor. “In the past I’ve had times when I… I relied on you a lot. Too much. And now I don’t have to. I didn’t spend university sitting around crying because you were gone.” He is icing over, protecting himself. Hajime can feel it.

“I didn’t think you did, it’s just—that’s different from saying you just _don’t need someone_. Like you don’t care at all.” Oikawa recoils.

“You think I don’t care?”

“No—maybe—” He wishes he had something to throw, or a volleyball to spike. “I don’t know, you tell me!”

“No, please, keep reading my mind, Iwa-chan. Tell me what I’m thinking!”

“Don’t make fun of me, this isn’t funny—”

“Really? I think it’s hilarious. _Oh_ , Iwaizumi Hajime, everyone thinks he’s so tough but the second you make a little joke he explodes in your face.” Over the years Hajime has seen this side of Oikawa more than once: this cold, sneering facade, that voice to make you feel two inches tall. But it has never been directed at him.

“Fuck you,” he spits. “You know that’s not what this is about.”

The thing about knowing someone for a decade and a half is that they know your every strength and weakness, every insecurity. Even the ones you yourself are not fully aware of, those that haven’t surfaced in years.

“Iwaizumi’s so good at everything, where would Oikawa Tooru be without him?” Oikawa’s voice climbs higher in pitch, mocking, but he isn’t shouting. He’s not even at normal speaking volume; he slings words over the futon in near-whispers. “Nowhere, probably, he’s so clingy and desperate—”

“I never said that!”

“‘Learning not to need me? Is that what you were doing?’” Oikawa throws his words back in his face with venom. “Like you could say any better. Where would _you_ be without _me_?”

Something inside Hajime _snaps_.

“I don’t _need_ you,” he hurls across the room. “I’m a goddamn functional person, I’m fine on my own.”

Oikawa scoffs. “And I’m not functional without you?”

“I know you’re not. You should hear your sister talk about you.” Bringing up their families, this is uncharted territory. If there’s one thing neither of them will touch, it’s this. It feels sacrilegious. Oikawa must sense this too; surprise flickers across his features before he recovers.

“My sisters have nothing to do with this—”

“Kaneko is worried sick about you, you asshole. She told me you’re not even answering her calls, you _know_ how she gets.”

“Don’t tell me how to handle her. She’s _my_ sister, I know what I’m doing.” The emphasis makes Hajime flinch. “And at least I’m here to answer her calls sometimes. I didn’t run away like you.”

This, finally, catches him off guard. This is new—he’s never been accused of such a thing. For a moment he forgets to be angry in his confusion.

“What— _run away_?”

“Yes, you did—don’t lie, that’s what you did!” Oikawa’s glare dares him to interrupt. “You could have stayed here, but you ran off to the other side of the country.”

“I left because that’s the university that accepted me!” Back in high school, Oikawa had encouraged him every step of the way, as Hajime had done the same. As best friends should. This is the first he’s heard of this particular complaint, five years after the fact.

“There are universities close to Sendai. They would have accepted you.”

“I wanted to try something new—that’s what _you_ told me I should do—”

“I told you what you wanted to hear!” Finally Oikawa’s voice grows louder; he’s nearly shouting, and Hajime feels a vicious sort of satisfaction. “Yes, go somewhere new and far away, I’m sure you had a great time escaping all your responsibilities.”

“What the hell?”

“In Nara you could just close your eyes, and you didn’t have to worry about _anything_. Not your friends, not your family—”

If this felt sacrilegious before, now this must be blasphemy. “My family’s the reason I came back here, don’t you fucking dare say that, you know it’s not true—”

“And then you come back here, and you think you can still run away from everything—”

“ _I’m not running away_ , I don’t do that!”

“You are,” seethes Oikawa. Here for the first time he gets up close, leans right into Hajime’s space and stares him down unflinching. “You _are_. No one else sees it, but no one sees you like I do. And I know—for the past five years you’ve been running away, and you’re a _coward_.”

And now Hajime runs out of words. He stares at Oikawa with this horrible twisting feeling in his stomach. He thinks maybe Oikawa isn’t talking about Nara anymore, but Hajime doesn’t know what he _is_ talking about—except he has this nagging feeling, he does know, but the truth is huge and terrifying and there are so many things crashing through his brain that he can’t sort any of them out. So he stands frozen, useless. He can’t even blink.

When Oikawa sees how he isn’t moving, there is a split second when he deflates—and then the anger is back again, and he turns and just—walks out. He doesn’t keep fighting, and Hajime does not pull him back.

He hears the front door open. _Tooru_ , he wants to call out.

The door slams shut. His hands are shaking; his hands never shake.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he hisses, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes. It’s not just his hands, it’s his whole body, little tremors through his muscles like earthquakes, the aftermath of a disaster.

It takes him a long time to pull his hands from his face, and immediately he wishes he hadn’t. A draft sneaks in through the window, the doorway gapes dark. His bedroom has never looked so empty.

 

* * *

 

Weeks pass. Things are normal.

Every weekday, Hajime wakes up at six and goes for a run to shake off the remnants of sleep. By the time he gets back he has just enough time to shower, make a quick breakfast, and catch the subway to work to see his first patient at eight. He buys lunches from the Family Mart on the corner—sometimes he’s even motivated enough to make his own lunch and bring it to the clinic, though it usually turns out a little bland—and after work he’s on his own for dinner. Sometimes he sees his cousins. Once an old friend from university visits and they go out for drinks. At the end of the night he looks at Hajime with something like hope, but Hajime just smiles and wishes him good night and safe travels back home.

He does not see Oikawa, not even once. His phone remains silent, save for occasional calls from his mother. This would be a welcome reprieve from the strings of messages it’s usually lighting up with non-stop.

The thing is, though, it _would be_. It isn’t actually. The thing is, he’s fucking miserable.

It shouldn’t be possible for one’s skin to ache like this, yet here he is. He never noticed how often he and Oikawa touched until the sensations are absent. In the cramped space of his kitchen, he keeps turning in anticipation of Oikawa’s shirt brushing against his arm as he maneuvers around the table, but there is nothing to touch him but stagnant air.

The crawling-ants jitters are gone, replaced by a conspicuous emptiness. It’s like he’s standing atop a yawning chasm, toeing the edge of a huge unknown—except it’s messy, there are _emotions_ flying everywhere that he has to dodge, like a raging firestorm at the bottom of the pit. Or something. He’s never been good with metaphors.

So he resolves not to think about it. He considers the whole debacle something that’s behind him now—at least, as far behind as he can push a lifetime of friendship. But that’s fine; all things end, he tells himself. Some end quietly, some with a bang, and some with screaming fights at one in the morning. The sooner he can move on with his life, the better. The roiling mixture of shame and regret and—whatever else is mixed up in there—that starts up in his gut every time he thinks about _the incident_ will have to fade eventually.

Some people, however, will not let it fade.

“You’re quiet tonight,” Matsukawa remarks over his beer. Hanamaki nods with the wide-eyed sincerity only seen in the extremely drunk. Across the table, Watari, who’s back in town for the weekend—hence the drinks—is facedown, snoring. The booth is only big enough for four, yet the absence of a fifth member must be felt keenly by all of them. Oikawa is away on some business trip for the week, though even if he had been here, he might not have come because of—reasons. “You’ve always been the strong and silent type, but you’re really playing up the _silent_ today.”

Hajime takes another gulp from his beer. “Sorry. Work stuff.”

“It’s Oikawa, isn’t it?”

He glares. “You’re talking about this _now_?” He’s not drunk, exactly, but he’s definitely fuzzy enough to know that this is not the best idea.

“Yep.” Matsukawa shrugs. “You two still fighting?”

“We’re not fighting.”

“You haven’t spoken to him in weeks, have you?” (Grunt means yes.) “I hate to break this to you, but that’s called _fighting_ , Iwaizumi.”

Hajime scowls and takes another drink. _Still_ , says Matsukawa, as if this thing has gone on for several months instead of… one month, plus a few extra days. The unfortunate thing about the occasion falling on Hajime’s birthday—other than the fact that it was _on his goddamn birthday_ —was that it was too easy to count the days passing since.

Watari lifts his head, finally, and squints around at the table. “What… what’d I miss?”

“Oh, you’re awake,” says Hanamaki happily. He picks up a stray napkin and hands it to him, as if rewarding him for being alive.

“You woke up just in time for the good stuff,” says Matsukawa. “Hajime-kun is dishing about his love life.”

“His what?” asks Watari, at the same time Hajime says, “What the _hell_ are you saying?”

“He’s having a fight with Oikawa,” Matsukawa continues, reaching over to tug away the napkin now stuck to Watari’s cheek. “It’s all very mature, because we’re adults now.”

“WHAT,” says Watari, swiveling around to stare at him. Next to him, Hanamaki is nodding again.

“It’s so sad. Isn’t it sad?” he asks mournfully.

“ _No_ ,” Watari practically shouts across the table. “You and Oikawa-san… you can’t be fighting. You’re _meant to be_.” Hajime stares.

“Watari—”

“You’re supposed to be _together_! And have some… volleyballs. Volleyball babies, maybe. I don’t know what you want, Iwaizumi-san.”

“We should get you water,” says Hajime. He shoots a glare at their friends. Hanamaki has graduated to sniffling, and Matsukawa has given up and buried his face in his arms, shoulders shaking with laughter.

“No, _listen_.” Watari leans forward and fixes Hajime with a look that’s probably supposed to be intimidating, but it’s kind of wavery from all the alcohol he’s consumed. “You have to make up. Call him and say you’re sorry.”

“You know, he’s got a point,” Matsukawa gets out, raising his head to wipe a tear from his eye.

“We’ve been saying that for weeks,” agrees Hanamaki. “ _Weeks_ , Watari-kun.”

“CALL HIM NOW. RIGHT NOW.” The last time Hajime witnessed this kind of intensity from Watari was during their last Spring High prelims, probably.

A passing waiter shoots them a concerned look. Hajime turns to order a couple glasses of water, and when he turns back, Watari and Hanamaki are huddled over Hanamaki’s phone, staring at the screen with wobbly determination.

After a moment, Hanamaki lifts the phone to his ear. “It’s the voicemail,” he stage-whispers to Watari.

“Leave a message!” shouts Watari, and Hanamaki nods, gripping the phone with determination. He’s finally gotten a case for his phone after the last one cracked. It’s plain black, practical, just like Hajime’s.

In fact, it looks _exactly_ like his own—

“Hi, Oikawa,” Hanamaki says into the receiver, just as Hajime lunges across the table.

“Give me my goddamn phone!”

Matsukawa jumps up, preventing him from upending all their glasses. “Hey, calm down—”

“Hanamaki, I swear to god—”

“I’m sad tonight, Tooru. I’m so sad for you,” says Hanamaki, slurring a little. “You know why? Because you and Iwaizumi are—”

“Being _dumb_ ,” yells Watari, shoving his face next to the phone. “Sorry, Oikawa-san! It’s true.”

“That was Watari,” says Hanamaki helpfully. “Say hello, Watari-kun.”

“NOT UNTIL HE TELLS IWAIZUMI HE’S SORRY.”

“Okay, he’s not saying hello. We just, we want the best for you two, you’re like—I feel like you guys are our parents, but also our kids, it’s really weird—”

“This is the best thing that has ever happened to me,” says Matsukawa, straight-faced.

“I’m going to kill you all,” Hajime tells them. “I’m actually going to. You have ten seconds.”

“Oh, Hajime-kun’s making the scary face now—” _Hajime-kun?_ “—so I’m gonna go before he burns down the building, you need to talk out your problems like big kids _oh my god don’t hurt me_ —”

He grabs the phone from Hanamaki’s hand, barely bothering to end the call before shoving it into his pocket. Watari is watching him with wide-eyed fascination, Hanamaki giggles nervously, and Matsukawa—definitely the least drunk of the four—just sits and looks at Hajime like he’s waiting to see if a bomb will explode. Hajime doesn’t know what he sees.

The bar isn’t crowded, but it’s stifling in its warmth and the clink of glasses and buzz of voices is too much, and Hajime’s whole body just screams, _get out_. Their table is close to the back of the establishment, far enough from the front door to make an escape via that route awkward, so he excuses himself and gets the fuck out through the fire door.

Outside it’s not as cool as he’d like. July has dawned muggy as usual; the slam of the door behind him sounds muffled by the overwarm night. Regardless of temperature, fresh air is usually all he needs to return his heart rate to normal, but now—now he can no longer run from what he needs to do and his hands are shaking again, his hands never shake.

Next to him, the fire door swings open.

“Are you done?” asks Matsukawa. He props the door open with a brick before moving to lean on the wall next to Hajime, watching the flickering neon sign in the convenience store across the street.

Despite himself, Hajime snorts. “Probably.”

“That’s a shame. It was a good show. Very dramatic.”

“Sorry.”

Matsukawa shrugs. “It’s understandable.” He pauses before adding, “If you’re in middle school, maybe.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Hajime raises a hand to shoo away a mosquito. The movement mostly disguises the tremor in his hands.

“Hey.” In his periphery, Matsukawa turns to face him. “You alright?” So maybe the disguise wasn’t as opaque as he’d thought.

“What do you think?”

“That bad, huh,” says Matsukawa, mostly to himself.

The little silence that falls between them isn’t awkward or tense, just thoughtful. It’s a while before he speaks again.

“I’m not going to tell you what to do,” he begins. Hajime raises his eyebrows. “If I could just… make a suggestion.” He waits for Hajime’s nod before continuing. “I don’t even know what you’re fighting about. But whatever it is, it’s not all your fault.” Hajime looks over, startled, and his old friend smirks. “I know how you get. You probably did fuck up, but so did Oikawa, I’d bet. So it’s not entirely on you to make up—it’s both of you. Stop beating yourself up over it.” Hajime turns back to the street. A lone car passes by, illuminating them both in a slice of bright yellowish light.

“Thought you weren’t going to tell me what to do,” he says. Matsukawa chuckles.

“I couldn’t help myself.” He unhitches himself from the wall and turns away, swinging the door open. “Come back whenever you feel like it.” And he’s gone, leaving Hajime alone again with the mosquitos and the quiet street.

Iwaizumi Hajime is bad at apologies. He isn’t great with words in general—his first instinct is always to act, he is loudest when he is caring for someone—but this brand especially is difficult. Normally he would make some kind of gesture as an apology, but something of this magnitude would merit a gesture too grand to be sincere. And he and Oikawa, they don’t do things like that. (They don’t even give each other birthday gifts. Throughout the year, they just pick up things they know the other would like.)

But Matsukawa is right: he’s acting like a child. He and Oikawa both are. Hajime is twenty-four years old but sometimes that’s all he feels like, a scared little kid facing the first day of middle school alone after having argued with Oikawa two days before. Except on that morning years ago, he’d marched up to his best friend and said, “Our fight was dumb. We’re both wrong. Are you ready to leave or not?” And Oikawa had nodded, and they walked to Kitagawa Daiichi together and that was that.

It’s not so simple now. Now, there’s—a train wreck of feelings, and alcohol muddling his brain, and a bone-deep terror that this time he’s fucked up irrevocably.

He can hear Oikawa’s voice in his head, clear as if he’s whispered straight into his ear. _You’re running away. You’re a coward._ But this time, he hears what he could not discern late that night in his childhood bedroom; he’d been too distracted by anger and fear to understand what Oikawa truly meant. Now, he hears the challenge thrumming beneath the surface: _Prove me wrong._

He has never turned down a challenge.

_You’ve reached Oikawa Tooru_. The answering machine makes his voice tinny. He sounds professional, only because he doesn’t have a separate work phone. _Please leave a message and I’ll return it as soon as I can._

_Beep_.

“Hey, it’s me. I know you’re probably on a plane or something, but I’m calling anyway, I guess. You can, uh, disregard the last voicemail. Watari’s in town, so we’re out for drinks, and that… happened. Sorry about that. Anyway—” He inhales deep, and ignores his lungs’ unsteadiness. “I’m sorry. About everything. I was an asshole, and—I’ve never been more sorry about anything in my life. So whenever you’re back home, I want to see you. If you want to see me.”

Back in their Seijou days, when they were in a tight spot during a volleyball game, Oikawa used to turn to him and, despite the suffocating pressure of the moment, smile. _My perfect trust in you, Iwa-chan._

“It’s up to you,” says Hajime.

He hangs up. It’s funny, he should probably feel relieved or something, but instead he just feels… a little sweaty, and a lot nervous, and maybe—excited.

 

* * *

 

The next morning, Hajime opens his eyes to sunlight streaming through a gap in his blinds, a beautifully bright Sunday morning, and thinks, _Shit_.

Last night when he’d finally gotten home around—two? Maybe closer to three, ugh—he’d forgotten to close the blinds to avoid waking up with the sun like usual, and his mouth tastes _disgusting_. At least he’s not hungover.

A quick shower makes him as ready to face the day as he’s going to be, given the pitiful amount of sleep he’s gotten, so he heads out the door to run errands. It’s early enough that the stores are fairly empty; most of Sendai is sleeping in. So when his phone buzzes in his pocket, he assumes it’s Hanamaki asking what happened last night, or maybe Watari swearing that he’ll never go out with them again.

_Oikawa Tooru calling_.

Hajime doesn’t give himself time for second guesses, he hits _answer_ and hopes nothing in his voice betrays how his heart rate’s picked up.

“Hey.”

“I got your message,” says Oikawa without preamble. “You’re right, I was on an airplane. I just landed, I’m trying to get out right now—” Voices clamor in the background of the call. Some announcement crackles over the airport speakers and forces Oikawa to pause. “Where are you?”

“Out, but I’m going home soon.”

“Meet you there?”

“Yeah. Oikawa—”

“What?”

“Don’t rush. I’m still here.”

When Oikawa speaks again he sounds a little out of breath, just as Hajime thought he’d be. “Of course, Iwa-chan.”

For the next hour or so Hajime has to remind himself to follow his own advice. He wants nothing more than to drop his groceries and run straight to his apartment, but he sticks to his list, checks off every item. There’s a breeze coming off the ocean today, and it’s pleasant enough that he gets off the bus a stop early so he can walk the rest of the way home.

No one is at the door to his building, though if Oikawa’s beaten him here he might have already gone upstairs. It would be just like him to wait at Hajime’s front door, tapping his foot, checking his watch.

He shifts the grocery bags to dig his keys out of his pocket, hurrying before he remembers his own words. _Don’t rush_ , Oikawa will be there soon. Maybe he’ll make himself some tea while he waits.

“Iwa-chan.”

He is hyperaware of the sun warming his skin, the air pulling in and out of his lungs, the beat of his heart, now racing. He turns and Oikawa stands at the curb, a handful of steps between them. So much for not rushing—his suitcase sits next to him, the end of his tie sticks out of one pocket. His suit jacket hangs over his arm.

“You didn’t even change first,” says Hajime.

“You wanted to see me,” says Oikawa.

Hajime stands with an armful of groceries and looks, _really_ looks, at the closest friend he’s ever had—disheveledness only perceptible because Hajime knows how to look for the crinkles in his pants, his hastily rolled sleeves—who he hasn’t seen in five weeks. _You’re **here**_ , is his first, unbidden thought, and something in his chest deeper than his lungs lets out a long exhale.

Over the past weeks he’d thought he could forget about their fight, put it and Oikawa in the past together, but he should have known from the start: there is no forgetting Oikawa Tooru. Not the whole of him, not any of his parts. In Hajime’s life he is a constant presence even when he is physically absent, seeping into both the memories of the past and the hazy silhouettes of the future.

For so long Hajime didn’t realize what this might mean, and then when discovery threatened to break the surface he refused to acknowledge it. Now, he peers over the edge of this huge unknown and the illumination thrown over him is not a firestorm to escape, it’s a blinding light that encompasses him, that he turns to face head-on.

There are one million people who live in Sendai but there is only one who intertwines with the city so closely that they together define the unfocused image of his future: Oikawa is the lights atop skyscrapers in the middle of the night; he is the scent of _sakura_ in Mikamine Park; he is the hot rush of a breeze off the ocean warmed by summertime. He is an extra cup of tea in the morning for someone who is not there, but who you know will show up at your door. Hajime loves him as he loves the city—he _loves_ him, he can see it now and it sears him; it feels like touching a raw nerve, layers of skin peeled back.

“I never thought I’d like living in a big city,” he says. “There’s too much happening, all at once.”

“Don’t tell me you called me here just to say that you’re moving away again,” says Oikawa, and it’s supposed to be a joke but it comes out pleading. Hajime shakes his head.

“I’m not. I want to stay here—I love it. Your tour thing worked, after all.” He attempts a smile, but Oikawa remains still. His glasses are slipping down his nose; he doesn’t move to push them up.

“What are you doing, Iwa-chan?” He sounds—tired, and maybe a little desperate. Hajime breathes in, listens to the air in his lungs and a breeze rustling the branches over his head. _No more running away_.

“Do you know that feeling,” he says, “when you’ve been waiting for something, for months and months, and you finally stop waiting? And you can go to your apartment and sit down and think, ‘finally, I’m _home_.’” He waits for Oikawa’s nod. “I didn’t have that in Nara—I haven’t felt it in so long. When I moved to Sendai I didn’t think I’d have it, since I’ve never lived here, either. But then I realized…” He pauses, winded; what he’s trying to say exhausts him, but this is too important not to continue. “That feeling could be a person, and I already had it. It was right there—it was _right fucking there_ , it took me so long to figure that out. God, it took me fifteen years, and I’m sorry. But I get it now.”

To expel this many words at once is an enormous effort. But as he speaks, each one rings more and more true, hitting him hard in the center of his chest. He hasn’t rehearsed any of this—he doesn’t believe in pre-packaged sentiment—but that doesn’t mean he isn’t sincere; he is saying these things in the spur of the moment because they feel more honest than any he could have planned beforehand. Oikawa is his past and his future but this moment, right here, is his present, and that in itself commands his respect.

“That’s…” Oikawa’s eyes are huge—not like he’s panicking, it’s more like he’s standing at the edge of a cliff and realizing the height of the precipice, stretching all the way down to the ocean. “Do you mean, it’s—”

“It’s _you_ ,” says Hajime. “It’s always been you.” He swallows hard, takes a deep breath. “I know you’ll probably have to travel a lot for work, and that’s—that’s fine, I don’t care, you can go wherever you need to go, and for however long. But… I know this is selfish to want, but. Whenever you come back, I want you to have that feeling like you’re coming home, and—I want it to be _me_.”

The fancy suit jacket hits the ground. Oikawa crosses the space between them in a heartbeat and steps in close, taking Hajime’s face in those long-fingered hands. When he exhales, a handsbreadth away, it sounds like, “ _Finally_.”

Their first kiss is—ridiculous, honestly; Oikawa hasn’t fully stopped moving and his momentum carries him forward so that their noses bump, and his glasses kind of get in the way, and it’s the best thing that has ever happened to Hajime, bar none. It’s ridiculous and it’s amazing, a thousand times better than he ever could have imagined. (At this point, he can admit he’s imagined it more than once). He pushes Oikawa’s glasses up onto his head to get them out of the way, sliding his other hand to Oikawa’s hip to steady him, and tilts his head to better slant their mouths together. Hajime is a grown man, he knows how to kiss, and since this is probably the most significant one of his life thus far he’s damn well going to kiss as if it is.

So he opens his mouth under Oikawa’s, but before he can do anything Oikawa’s hands slide to his neck and then he’s being kissed with twice the intensity of the moment before, teeth dragging his lip. Of course Oikawa is an amazing kisser—he’s good at just about everything else—but it is a revelation nonetheless.

He dares to open his eyes by fractions when they finally break apart, their breath coming unsteady. Making out in the middle of the goddamn street like some kind of exhibitionists, he should be embarrassed, but he can only focus on Oikawa’s breath over his lips, and his own heartbeat slamming in his ears. “So you… you also—”

“Yes, Hajime.” Oikawa steals another kiss, no more than a peck, really, feather-light on his lips. It knocks the air from his lungs. “Of course yes.”

For a second they just feel each other breathe—and then Oikawa begins to laugh.

“I’m sorry, I’m not laughing at you—it’s just, you have no idea—” He laughs until he has to pull away and rest his head on Hajime’s shoulder, his back shaking. “I’ve wanted to say this for months.”

“Months,” he echoes—useless, but that’s all he can manage, he’s still trying to process this concept. That he hasn’t ruined the best friendship he’s ever had, that after he finally got over himself and acknowledged what’s been happening (how long has it been? Years?), Oikawa hadn’t slammed the door in his face, but instead thrown it wide.

“Do you remember when we had that _hanami_ picnic, back in the spring?” Colored lanterns in the trees and _sakura_ petals in Oikawa’s hair, of course he remembers.

“Yeah.” Despite himself, a smile finds its way to his lips. “You named that fucking fish after me.” Oikawa starts giggling again.

“I wanted to say something then,” he admits, when he recovers. “It was going to be very dramatic. I had a whole speech prepared, but then you interrupted, and I thought, ‘No, not yet.’ And now you’ve beat me to it!”

“A speech, huh.” Hajime remembers the day in full—not just the goldfish and the festival—and it sobers him. “You were right, when we argued.”

Oikawa pulls away to look at him fully, brow furrowed. “About what?”

“I was running away. That day, I could tell something was up, but—I didn’t know what to do about it, so I did nothing.” Guilt colors Oikawa’s features at the reminder of his own words.

“It’s okay.”

“No, really—” He tightens his grip on Oikawa’s shoulder. “I mean it. I was stupid. From now on, no more running away. I’m staying here.” In the face of his sudden intensity Oikawa’s eyes widen, his lips parting. Hajime isn’t sure what Oikawa sees in his expression. He’s not the most expressive person but he’s just done a whole lot of expressing, so maybe right now he’s an open book—or maybe Oikawa is just an expert at reading him. But just as he’s getting impatient, Oikawa blinks, and smiles.

“Well, I hope you don’t stay _right_ here.” He’s teasing, but there’s an edge to his grin that makes Hajime’s heart race. “Aren’t you going to invite me in?”

Hajime huffs and pushes him away; Oikawa stumbles a couple steps for effect, grinning. The grocery bag has tipped over, spilling cold medicine and soup stock onto the sidewalk. Hajime speaks with his back to Oikawa as he retrieves the fallen food. “Come upstairs.”

“Iwa-chan, that’s not very romantic.” The pout is audible.

“Fine. Come upstairs so I can get you out of that suit.”

“Mm, that’s a little better.”

Hajime glares at him over the groceries. “You’re such an asshole.”

“You love it,” says Oikawa, and he’s teasing but there’s a confidence behind his words where there wasn’t before.

“Shut up,” mutters Hajime, and Oikawa laughs, delighted.

Oikawa follows him up the stairs, dragging his bag without complaint, for once, and when they finally reach Hajime’s apartment and get inside, Hajime barely has time to turn the lock behind him before Oikawa is crowding him up against the door, kissing him again. This time his kisses are harder, more intent—they’re not in public anymore, he doesn’t have to hold back. But neither does Hajime; he leans to press kisses to Oikawa’s neck, pulling at the top buttons of his dress shirt to expose his collarbones, scraping lips and teeth along skin until Oikawa is gasping, his head tilted back to expose more of his skin, greedy.

“Come on,” says Hajime eventually, with some difficulty. Oikawa makes an impatient noise and captures his lips again, and Hajime loses his train of thought and takes a long moment to recover it. “Come on,” he repeats, pushing himself away from the door, pulling Oikawa toward his bedroom. “We have a lot to catch up on.”

“I wasn’t gone for that long,” says Oikawa. His lips are swollen from kisses; it’s satisfying, seeing him start to come undone. “Did Iwa-chan miss me?”

“Not what I meant.”

“Ah,” says Oikawa, and for a long while that’s all either of them says—again, and again, and again.

 

* * *

 

Back when it was only Oikawa and Suga living in the apartment, it fit them perfectly—two small bedrooms, a shared bathroom, the tiny living space for everything else—but now it’s been nearly two years since move-in, and if anyone else dares to step over the threshold the entire place is fit to explode.

Weekday mornings go like this: everyone needs to be at work around the same time, but Hajime is naturally an early riser, so he’s awake and in the shower before Oikawa or Suga have even cracked an eye open. This works well, except when Sawamura is also there, and the two of them end up blinking at each other bleary-eyed in front of the bathroom door until one waves the other forward. Whoever’s not in the bathroom will shuffle to the kitchen to start a pot of coffee, even though half the people crammed into this apartment drink tea in the mornings instead.

Sometimes Hajime’s morning tea will be interrupted by Suga banging on the bathroom door, raising his voice to be heard over the fan.

(”How many times have I told you? Your five-step regimen isn’t time-sensitive, they just tell you that so you’ll use the product faster.” And then a series of thumps on the door.

“Stop doing that! You can’t come in, I’m indecent.”

“I have literally seen you naked _so many times_ , Tooru. LET ME BRUSH MY TEETH.”)

And he and Sawamura will share a familiar look over the kitchen table. _This is the life we chose_ , the look says, as Oikawa yells something unintelligible in reply and Suga groans.

“Sometimes I wonder,” says Sawamura one morning as he rises to refill his cup. “How did they survive before we got here?”

“I heard that.” Sugawara enters the kitchen with a rain cloud trailing him, having lost the battle for the shower. He reaches over to steal a sip of tea from Sawamura’s mug before he beelines for the coffeemaker.

“No idea,” says Hajime. “They should’ve burned this place to the ground by now.”

"Everyone thinks you're so put-together, don't they?" muses Sawamura as Suga shuffles around making breakfast. "At school and at the hospital. _That Sugawara-san is such a good doctor, but I wonder if he knows how to make himself breakfast without burning down his building?_ "

Suga shakes his head as if _he's_ the one chastising them. "You're so _rude_ in the mornings, Daichi."

"Did you hear yourself a minute ago? I thought you were going to break down the door."

"It’s fine, that's what the security deposit is for.”

Not long after that Oikawa charges into the kitchen, declaring he'll be late if he doesn't hurry, which prompts another round of bickering about skin care routines and _there is only one sink in this apartment and you have to share it, Tooru_ , before someone realizes what time it is and Hajime and Oikawa have to haul ass to catch their bus.

"We need a bigger place," Oikawa grumbles once they're on the bus. It's packed with people on their morning commute; they have to reach for the high handles over everyone else's heads.

"Your lease is almost up, isn't it?"

"Yeah."

“So’s mine.”

“Mm.”

Oikawa falls silent, and Hajime frowns at him over some businessman's head. "What?"

"We're not renewing the lease." Oikawa glances at him, then away, out the window of the bus where Sendai rolls past, already humming with the beginning of the workday. "Kou-chan is moving out with Dai-chan after graduation. Tokyo, probably." _Tokyo_. Even bigger and brighter than their home now; Hajime can’t imagine it.

"That's far."

"I know."

They fall quiet as the bus pulls up to the next stop and they're packed even more tightly. Hajime is forced to let go of his handle. He shifts closer to Oikawa, resting a hand on his hip for balance.

"Iwa-chan, we're in _public_." His voice is barely above a whisper, amused.

"Shut up, I don't want to fall over and crush somebody."

They can't say much else without half a dozen people overhearing every word, so their conversation pauses until they’re off the bus and in the subway station where they’ll part ways. In four minutes from now Hajime’s train will take him to the clinic; in seven more Oikawa’s will take him to the high-rises of the business district.

“So what’ll you do?” asks Hajime, picking up the conversation again. Oikawa hums, noncommittal.

“I’d like to be closer to work—I don’t want my commute to be any longer than it already is, but.” He shrugs. There’s a stray thread at the edge of his cuff. He fiddles with it seemingly without notice.

Hajime takes his wrist. “Stop doing that, you’ll unravel it.” He tucks it inside, away from prying fingers. “But what?”

“If I move closer to the office I’ll be farther from… other things.” Hajime elbows him in the side. Oikawa scrunches his nose at him, smoothing out the creases put into his suit.

“Why don’t you just go ahead and say it?” Two minutes until his train arrives. Oikawa bats his eyelashes innocently.

“Say what?”

“I’m not doing this for you.”

He sighs. “But _Iwa-chan_ , it’s so embarrassing.”

_One minute until the next arrival._ Hajime stares ahead, unblinking, as Oikawa shifts from foot to foot beside him. He’s enjoying himself too much to give in now.

“Fine,” sighs Oikawa as the train pulls into the station, brakes squealing. “Will you move in with me?”

“Do I even need to answer that?”

“You—after all that?” He’s so _indignant_ , it’s cute and it’s unfair. Hajime bites back a laugh. “Yes, you do!”

“Sure,” he says, after a long, satisfying pause. “Might be fun.”

Oikawa scowls. “That’s all?”

So Hajime grabs him by the tie and drags him in for a kiss—not anything _lewd_ , they’re in public, after all, though they’re probably still drawing stares. When you’ve been with someone for almost a year there’s not a lot that still makes your heart race, but this does: not kissing in a subway station, but the future opening up before them, and the knowledge that they will always have a place to return to that they call home.

When Oikawa pulls away he draws the words from Hajime’s mouth, unbidden: “I love you.”

“I know,” he says, cheeky, and Hajime rolls his eyes.

The flow of the crowd moving toward the train presses at him. He lets himself get swept up, calling out over heads: “You could say it back, asshole.”

Oikawa laughs, and just as Hajime gets inside the doors—one of the last people to squeeze into the car—he shouts back, “I love you, too, you know.”

“Idiot,” Hajime mutters under his breath. There’s no way Oikawa can hear him, but he keeps laughing anyway as the doors slide shut and the train pulls away from the station. Out the window Oikawa grows smaller and smaller, and Hajime does not wait for him to disappear from view; instead he turns to look ahead into the sunlight, to whatever the day might hold.

 

**Author's Note:**

> [crosses "iwaoi manifesto" off the list] nailed it
> 
> for reference: [this is what rinno-ji looks like](http://www.japan-guide.com/g9/5154_02.jpg), i thought it seemed like a place that iwaizumi would enjoy.
> 
> thanks for reading! x


End file.
